her to die so he had turned her without her permission and without anyone else’s knowledge. Medea had found his disaster and put the woman out of her misery. That had been the first time Caleb had experienced death.

“So that’s what Marcus meant when he said why he dumped the first victim. He said he did it because she kept asking him to turn her.” Sophie connects the dots as she thinks about the case, “And you think all those familiars wanted to be turned into vampires, that’s how they got captured… You think they knew each other? I mean from before they were kidnapped. Andrea mentioned that she knew the first victim through social media. What if the others knew each other as well? If we can look through their social medias we might be able find out where they were spending a lot of their time. That could help narrow down our search, right?”

“Clubs and bars.” Caleb provides, “That’s where familiars and vampires go to hook up. But you’re right, there are hundreds of clubs that cater to us, being able to narrow down the list will help the search.”

Sophie grins ear to ear feeling ecstatic to get approval from Caleb, “Okay. You keep looking through the halfbreeds. I’ll stick with the familiars. We have to get a couple hits back from DNA and facial recognition eventually and then I’ll be able to comb through their social medias and hopefully find connections between them.”

The joy that Sophie feels from doing actual police work eventually comes to an end when the work day ends and she and Caleb both get ready to leave. Caleb didn’t argue too strongly against Captain Batting when he insisted that Caleb leave at a normal hour. Caleb had already spent the whole day memorizing names and faces and going through medical supplies list to see

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if any buyers’ names jumped out at him, none did. It had been a long shot Caleb knew. Nowadays buying blood transfusion kits and similar medical supplies has become commonplace for people who want to experience a night with a vampire without the obvious bite marks so the list had been long and with plenty of civilian names on it.

Sophie and Caleb walkout at the same time, but Sophie initially heads in the direction of the subway whereas Caleb starts walking the other way. When Sophie rounds the first corner she stops and turns around. In the distance she can see Caleb walking, his strawberry blond hair easily catches the streetlights as he walks under them making it look like he’s wearing a halo. Sophie takes a deep breath to steady herself and starts walking after him at a distance she hopes is far enough away that he won’t be able to hear her behind him.

Sophie’s heart sink even further when she comes to the conclusion that Caleb is indeed not going to his house. Caleb had told Sophie that he lived in a house in the suburbs. All the houses in this neighborhood that Caleb had led her to look like trap houses which she can’t imagine him living in and despite the late hour there are still people loitering the corners and alleyways that are giving her a bad vibe. Sophie walks carefully trying to not draw attention to herself, feeling grateful that she had decided wear more sensible, casual clothing today instead of the dress clothes she’d worn yesterday.

Sophie stops in her tracks when Caleb finally stops and enters into a nightclub. The nightclub’s dj is playing tonight so the sounds of his electronic music can be heard buzzing out onto the sidewalk. Sophie takes a deep breath to steady herself and continues to follow Caleb’s footsteps. When she gets closer to where Caleb had disappeared she realizes that Caleb hadn’t gone into the actual club, but to some type of secondary building adjoined to the club. Sophie

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views the locked door in front of her and decides that Captain Batting would not be happy if she had let this stop her from finding out what Caleb is doing here so she easily jimmies the lock until the door opens up for her to reveal a set of stairs that she realizes goes above the club. Hesitantly she begins to climb them.

In Sophie’s defense if she had known that the stairs led directly into someone’s living space she would never have gone so far, but she thought that that stairs must lead to some private offices or at the very least she’d be met with more locked doors, but instead the stairs take her to a kitchen-dining area where she finds Caleb sitting crosslegged on a table and another man, much larger than him, kissing him.

“Oh.” Sophie stares frozen at the two like a deer caught in the headlights.

The two part in surprise and stare back at her. Realizing what’s happened Caleb just leans back and rubs his jaw in thought as he watches her.

Alejandro who has no idea who she is immediately goes on the offensive, “Who the fuck are you? What are you doing in my home?” As he steps closer to her Sophie sees the marks that she has gotten used to seeing, bite marks.

“Oh.” She says again as everything about this moment suddenly snaps into clarity for her. Caleb is visiting his familiar, the owner of the apartment she had just barged into. “This was a mistake…” Sophie slowly starts to backup wishing she could rewind time and undo her own stupidity.

“You don’t say?” Caleb agrees. He looks up at Alejandro, “Grab her.”

“No, no, Caleb!” Sophie tries to get away, but Alejandro’s grip is like steel. Caleb kicks out a chair from under the table and Alejandro forces her to take a seat in it.

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Caleb jumps down from the table and walks around to look at Sophie, “You see, I knew you were naive, but I didn’t realize you were literally this stupid.”

“Who is she?” Alejandro asks looking down at her curiously.

“Alejandro, this is Sophie, my new partner from work. Sophie, meet Alejandro, as you’ve probably already figured out he’s my familiar.”

“What’s your partner doing following you here?” Alejandro asks.

“Great question. Don’t know, don’t care. I’m going to erase her memories anyway so it’s not going to matter.” Caleb shrugs off the inquiry.

“No, Caleb, that’s not fair!” Sophies cries out.

“Fair? You follow me, barge into my home, and interrupt my dinner. I guess because I’m a vampire I’m not allowed to any privacy? And you think that’s fair?”

“No, Caleb, wait. Okay, this was Captain Batting’s idea, he said if I didn’t follow you he’d assign someone else to be your partner.”

“And you were so afraid of that coming to pass?” Caleb mocks her in disbelief that she’d actually care.

“Why did Fredrick have you follow him now? That seems pretty random.” Alejandro speaks up confused over the matter.

“You don’t know?” Sophie looks up at Caleb surprised, “You didn’t tell him?”

“Tell me what?”

There’s a moment of silence between them where the only sound that can be heard is the music pulsing through the floor from the nightclub.